ZOMG ANGST (AND AN AXE!)
Click to viewDon't read this. Seriously, don't read this. It's about some stuff I didn't even want to bring up but I keep thinking about it so I want to rant about it, but I know it's crazy and stupid and...yeah. I'm afraid people will try to give me advice, and I don't want that. I know people mean well, but...Look, I don't want to be rude, and I appreciate that people care. The only reason I have the "please don't give me advice" rule in the first place is because, no matter what people say or think or know or have experienced, they are NOT ME. They may have anxiety and shyness, and they may have had a horrible past, I'm not saying they didn't. But everything affects everyone differently, and just because they know how hard things are for them does not mean they know how hard they are for ME. And this this goes for everyone who would give me advice, everyone who thinks they know what I should do and wants to tell me because somehow they think their solution hasn't occurred to me. I do nothing but sit up here and think of every possible solution and every possible outcome for every action all day long, I have gone over everything in my head, and there is almost no chance that someone will suggest something that I haven't already thought of. And plus, anyone who reads me saying "I'm sad, I'm throwing up over and over every day and terrified to leave the house" and their first inclination is to give me advice and tell me "you should leave the house" that makes me feel like they don't understand how hard it is.
So...there's a campus GLWTFBBQ group that meets on campus, and it's the closest thing to a GLWTFBBQ group we have anywhere near here, so I'm thinking of going. But I'm also terrified to go, mostly because I'm terrified to leave the house period, I hate doing it. Always have, I hate being around people, I'm always afraid I'll say or do something stupid, and I worry about it so much...It's especially a struggle for me when I think about going to this group because it took me months before I was even able to work up the courage to email the leader of the group and ask where they met, because I know what this area is like, I know what the people are like, and I've sat here and heard the comments from local bisexual girls saying "oh no, not another bisexual who has an abusive past and is confused, you just perpetuate the stereotype that all bisexuals are confused." I heard them say that and heard the rest of them laugh, I know it was meant as a joke, and I don't fucking care, it hurt like HELL. I know all this, I know I have to drag myself out of the house in the first place and even sitting upright and typing is causing me to want to stab myself repeatedly in the eye right now because it's so hard for me to communicate with people right now, so I know that even if I have had good experiences with support groups I have had BAD experiences that far outweigh any good I may have gotten from them, and for the sake of my sanity I keep myself quiet and calm and give myself a Wednesday night full of a favorite TV show and some god food instead of forcing myself to leave the house and subject myself to the agony of walking the familiar streets to the familiar building which is the same building full of memories of how I was brutally emotionally abused every week in my church group, forcing myself to see and meet people and go to that room where I'm just as likely to get snide comments like the comment about how I am somehow inferior because I have an abusive past as I am any real support. I know how hard that will be for me, I know how that will kill, and I have suffered the constant pain of regret from forcing myself out of my comfort zone in the past only to be kicked in the face. So yes, I hesitate, and part of me wants to go anyway, despite all I know about what these meetings have been like in the past, I still want to go sometimes, but I hold back. And it's not an uninformed decision, and I know other people will think, "just go, it's not THAT hard" but if they say that there's no way they can know how hard it actually IS for me. Or so I think. Sigh.
And like I said, me saying all this isn't me yelling at anyone for giving me advice, I'm just saying why I don't like advice. For example, when I'm asking how to fix my computer or something in that vein, that's a technical problem that advice can likely help, but when I'm pouring out my heart about complex emotional issues it's highly unlikely that anyone who wants to suggest something I should do is going to do anything more than marginalize my problem and make it sound like I haven't thought about every solution. I'm not just putting this on other people, either. I hold the same standard for myself, I don't give people advice unless they ask for it because I know how people like to vent and how when you say "this is really hard for me and I don't want to do it" when it's met with someone saying "you should do it" can really hurt and be annoying, so I don't do that to people. Just on my own, without them asking, I decide not to give them advice. But so many people don't think the way I do that finally, I had to start asking people not to give me advice because they kept doing it, and then I would say "I already tried that" and the people would get mad at me or accuse me of yelling at them when really I was just saying I seriously TRIED whatever they suggested and it didn't work, I'm not trying to yell at people when they do that, I'm trying to explain how it occurred to me to try that but when I did, it didn't work, but that made people mad and then I got mad and finally I made the "no advice" rule to keep from having so many fights all the time. And I find that even asking people not to give me advice doesn't work, people still do it, because they want to help when they see someone hurting and they seem unable to see that giving advice hurts more than it helps.
I know everyone means well and I appreciate that people care, please don't think I don't appreciate that, but unless someone can give me something practical like if they lived here and they said "I'll go to the meeting with you, and then if it doesn't work out at least you'll know you went" or something, telling me to go isn't going to help. And I'm not berating you all for not living closer or anything (even though I wish most of you DID live closer) I'm actually thinking of an example from my life becuase when other people were afraid to go to the group in the past I offered to go with them because I knew it would help them to have someone there and that was an instance where I DID give advice because I thought I had some practical help to give, and then if they still didn't want to go I didn't push it. It really sucked back then, too, because I was a Christian and I knew other people in my church would think I was going to hell or would tell the campus minister and he called people out in sermons before for going to the bar when they "claimed to be a Christian" so I lived in terror someone would find out I was going. Those were fun times. :-p Now I just...now I just don't ever want to leave the house. I don't want to be around people, I'm tired (and I can already HEAR people thinking 'those are symptoms of depression' and yes, I know that, but it's more complicated than that...I had a reason to leave the house once, I went to church and defined my life by that group of people, and then when I didn't have that I was like this, alone most of the time, and it was ok. But then I met John, and we went out all the time, and I felt like I had someone who understood and wanted to be around me...and now I don't have that and I feel kind of lost. I don't want people around because it's such an effort to worry every second that I will say or do something stupid, but at the same time I'm lonely, and at the same time I'm stressed out from work and tired all the time...it's not just a blanket "it's depression" analysis, it's a lot of different factors and I don't know what to do about them...if I could have some time to chill out and relax and sit back and not worry and collect my thoughts things would be better, and I know that. This afternoon things were a little better and I even resolved to leave the house and go to the group just to try it out on Wednesday...but then the afternoon wore on and I'm so tired and have a migraine and I have to work and this is my only time off, and work called and tried to get me to come in on my only day off and guilt tripped me when I said no, and I thought about all the days I have to go in, and something snapped and I was freaking out again...I hate this. I'[m so very tired of this).
Yes, I know, that is terrible grammar, a parenthetical sentence that's WAY too long, and I'm using "they" and "them" improperly. I'm a lapsed English major and a lapsed Christian and a lapsed human being. I just wish I wasn't so TIRED all the time. I hate this feeling. Gah. I'm going to stop typing now.
So...this post has meant nothing. I'm whiny and annoying and tired and I don't want to work 7 days in a row. I just want to shoot myself.